Kant's Critique of Spinoza

Omri Boehm

Defends the controversial thesis that Spinoza is perhaps the most important target of Critique's attack on metaphysics.

Kant's Critique of Spinoza

Omri Boehm

Description

Contemporary philosophers frequently assume that Kant never seriously engaged with Spinoza or Spinozism-certainly not before the break of Der Pantheismusstreit, or within the Critique of Pure Reason. Offering an alternative reading of key pre-critical texts and to some of the Critique's most central chapters, Omri Boehm challenges this common assumption. He argues that Kant not only is committed to Spinozism in early essays such as "The One Possible Basis" and "New Elucidation," but also takes up Spinozist metaphysics as Transcendental Realism's most consistent form in the Critique of Pure Reason. The success — or failure — of Kant's critical projects must be evaluated in this light. Boehm here examines The Antinomies alongside Spinoza's Substance Monism and his theory of freedom. Similarly, he analyzes the refutation of the Ontological Argument in parallel with Spinoza's Causa-sui. More generally, Boehm places the Critique of Pure Reason's separation of Thought from Being and Is from Ought in dialogue with the Ethics' collapse of Being, Is and Ought into Thought.

Kant's Critique of Spinoza

Omri Boehm

Table of Contents

Preface Introduction 1. The One Possible Basis: The Ideal of Pure Reason and Kant's Regulative Spinozism 2. The First Antinomy and Spinoza 3. The Third Antinomy and Spinoza 4. The Causa Sui and the Ontological Argument, or The Principle of Sufficient Reason and The Is-Ought Distinction 5. Radical Enlightenment, the Pantheismusstreit, and a Change of Tone in the Critique of Pure Reason Bibliography Acknowledgements

Kant's Critique of Spinoza

Omri Boehm

Author Information

Omri Boehm, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, The New School for Social Research

Omri Boehm teaches philosophy at the Department of Philosophy of the New School for Social Research. He earned his PhD at Yale and has done philosophical work in Heidelberg and LMU-Munich. His publications include work on Kant, Early Modern Philosophy and the Philosophy of Religion. He is the author of The Binding of Isaac: A Religious Model of Disobedience (Continuum, 2007).

Kant's Critique of Spinoza

Omri Boehm

Reviews and Awards

"Omri Boehm offers a lucid and incisive defence, supported by careful scholarship, of the compelling idea that preoccupation with Spinozaappreciation of the force of Spinoza's reasoning along with a concern to avoid his drastic conclusionsis at the heart of Kants philosophical enterprise. I have learned a great deal from Boehm's fascinating study, and its excellence will be clearly visible to anyone who has pursued the question of what the Critique of Pure Reason is aiming to achieve." - Sebastian Gardner, Critique

"An avalanche of important work has been done recently on Spinoza as well as on Kant, but no one has considered their philosophical relationship in extensive detail in the way that Omri Boehm does here. In addition to offering challenging original treatments of the concept of God and the Pantheism Controversy, a unique contribution of this volume is its systematic analysis of the relation of Spinoza's arguments to Kant's complex First and Third Antinomies. These chapters alone make the book required reading now for anyone concerned with the central themes of modern philosophy." - Karl Ameriks, McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame